Krampus – National Lampoon’s (horrific!) Christmas Vacation

Sometimes you know you’re going to enjoy a film from the moment it starts.  The opening to the horror film ‘Krampus’ is a montage of Christmas shoppers, all fighting and – practically – rioting as they try to snap up the best bargains for themselves.  It was within these early minutes that the film made it clear that it didn’t take itself seriously and didn’t expect me to do either.  In short: it was a tongue-in-cheek little number and wanted the world to know it.

We meet our ‘typical’ family who are getting together for the holidays.  And, I say ‘typical’ because, instead of all getting along perfectly, they (like us?) are basically just pretending to for the duration.  However, the pretence finally snaps when the young boy has an outburst and storming off to his room.  Rather than the only effects of this meaning he gets an hour less Xbox time, he inadvertently summons up an evil ‘anti-Santa’ demon known as ‘Krampus,’ who descends upon the family to drag them off to the underworld one by one.  So, the family must fight for their survival (while also doing their best not to fight each other – at least some of the time!).

As you can probably tell, I enjoyed the movie.  It’s not trying to be anything amazing, other than a darkly comic little caper with shades of horror and a dash of social commentary.  And, despite it’s ‘PG13’ rating robbing it of its gore, it is pretty dark.  The monster itself is well done (looks like practical effects to me rather than CGI – always a bonus) and his minions amusing while being horrific at the same time (although I think the psychotic gingerbread men were CGI!).  If you’re into this sort of thing then you should be entertained for the duration.  There are a few minuses – the little boy is a bit annoying, but luckily the adults (especially David Koechner!) make up for the child’s inexperience.  Plus the German grandma was put in there purely for purposes of explaining Krampus to the family (and us, the audience).  Then there’s a nice little mini animation in the middle of the film that sort of goes some way to explaining Krampus’ origins.  It’s well done, but does seem a little out of place amidst the rest of the carnage.

But those are only minor gripes.  For some reason I found myself watching ‘Krampus’ on a boiling evening in mid June.  I think it’s better watched at Christmas.  I think after a few long weeks of listening to Christmas songs and having to make sure everyone has enough presents to keep them from hating me for another year, I’ll definitely watch this film again (and do my best not to wish Krampus on my extended family!).

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that